Your Tenancy

Assured Shorthold tenancy

If you are moving into a shared home, you will be started on a 6 months assured shorthold tenancy. If there are no problems at the end of 6 months, you can expect to be offered a long-term tenancy. If we have any doubts (for example, you haven’t paid your rent regularly) we will give you another 6 months tenancy and review the situation just before this ends. If there are problems, for example rent arrears or proven anti-social behaviour, you will be given notice to end the tenancy. If there are no problems, you can expect to be offered a long-term tenancy.

An assured shorthold tenancy can be terminated after the initial 6 months by either side giving one month’s notice.

Assured tenancy

If you are moving into a self-contained home, you will be given an assured tenancy. You should read your tenancy agreement carefully and ensure you keep it safe.

Here is some information about your rights under the assured tenancy agreement. Please contact the Operations Manager if you have any further queries.

Your security

You have security of tenure in your home as long as you occupy the premises as your only or principal home. This means that your tenancy can only be brought to an end by an order from the court. If there is a serious breach of your tenancy agreement and there is no alternative, then CHISEL may have no choice but to start legal proceedings.

There are several stages to this:

First we will have to serve you with a written notice of seeking possession, stating why we are taking legal action.

The ‘grounds’ (reasons) we can use are listed in your tenancy agreement and they include rent arrears, serious nuisance and damage to the property.

After the notice expires we can then apply to the court for a possession order. In some cases this will be a suspended or postponed order, to give the tenant a final opportunity to keep their home, but the terms of the order have to be followed.

Can I be evicted?

After we obtain a possession order from the court, if there is no other solution, we will obtain a bailiff’s warrant and evict the tenant. CHISEL will always seek to resolve matters first without having to resort to eviction. However, eviction will occur if there is no co-operation from a tenant and agreements have been broken.